


I got an advance copy of Rune Factory 4 Special

by Catrillion



Category: Rune Factory 4
Genre: Creepypasta, Gen, I'm posting it anyway, Meta, cursed game cartrage, does this count as fanfiction even?, survey says: nope!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23130703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catrillion/pseuds/Catrillion
Summary: I got an advance copy of Rune Factory 4 Special late last year before the official US release. I wasn’t going to say anything about it- just let it be something weird I experienced- but that all changed when other people’s game footage came out. I realized what I’d experienced wasn’t just something odd.And things only got worse from there.
Kudos: 3





	I got an advance copy of Rune Factory 4 Special

**Author's Note:**

> I asked my mom for an idea of what to write about and she's such a goof haha, because she said, "write one of those creepypastas where you've got a cursed video game. Hey, that Rune Factory game just came out, so make it about that!"
> 
> This is for you, Mom ♥

I got an advance copy of Rune Factory 4 Special late last year before the official US release. I wasn’t going to say anything about it- just let it be something weird I experienced- but that all changed when other people’s game footage came out. I realized what I’d experienced wasn’t just something odd. 

For context, I’m a game reviewer for a pretty, shall we say, underground game reviewing site. It’s really not a huge thing, really more just something a few friends and I run on the side of our real jobs. We just decided that we liked games and wanted to do something with it, so it’s just a small site where we mostly play and review RPGs, and despite not having a huge audience we’ve been doing this for a while. I actually wrote one review that got some moderate buzz, at least for our site, back in 2013- and that’s kinda where the story starts. 

Whatever got people’s attention I don’t really know, but I wrote a pretty glowing review of this game Rune Factory 4, which at the time had just gotten an English release. Well, “pretty glowing” is an understatement. I had gone Ga-Ga for the game. I had made a name for myself among our small fan base by playing trash and dogging on it hard, but Rune Factory 4 had me do a complete 180 from my usual schtick, and maybe people responded to that change of pace. I don’t really know for sure. All I do know is that traffic spiked hard on that review and we even got some more regular readers from it, which was great. I don’t think I really thought anything else could come from that. 

That is, until the email. 

It was late last year when I got it: an email from a man named John Wheeler, saying he was a localization manager from Xseed who had read the review all the way back in 2013 and loved it- loved it so much he thought I should get to play a review copy of the new special edition of the game coming out in 2020. I was so amazed, starstruck, and just… well, admittedly, I was feeling pretty proud. I didn’t think to even notice the holes that were already clearly showing. Truthfully, I think John Wheeler knew that would be the reaction of a nobody reviewer whose average daily traffic barely topped 2 dozen, and I think that’s why he contacted me. He knew I’d fall for it. 

I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. 

I didn’t think to question that he didn’t email me from an Xseed or, hell, even a Marvelous domain name. I also didn’t question why the lead localization manager would be contacting people to send out review copies. I did look him up and found out that John Wheeler really was the lead on Rune Factory 4 Special's localization, and I just never thought to question it further. I pretty much instantly said I was interested and gave him my mailing address to get my advanced copy of this new special edition of a game I had loved years back. 

It did take a long time to get it but with all of the delays I didn’t really get too worried about it. It was the end of December when I got a new email from John informing me that the game was going to be sent my way very soon, which was great news. And even though it had been just over two months that I had been waiting with no info before, only a day after I got that new email had I received the game in my mailbox. 

The small, mostly unornamented cardboard box had a sticker with the Xseed logo placed slightly off center and above another sticker withy name and address. I wasted no time and ripped it open right there in my building's hallway. The game case itself was also strangely blank- it was almost entirely white save for the Rune Factory 4 logo printed in the top center. I did think that was weird, but not “red flag” weird. More like… more like goofy weird. It was an advanced copy, after all, so maybe they hadn’t fully decided on the cover art. I gave it one small, inconsequential chuckle, and then thought nothing more of it. 

The game cartridge itself broke the cycle and did look like an actual game cart- it had a floral green background and “Rune Factory 4 Special” printed across it. I ran to the elevator and the entire ride up to my floor was basically vibrating with excitement. I gave the cart the inaugural lick- still horrible and bitter, just like any other Switch cart- and smashed it into my console to play it the moment I made it through the door. 

It took a while to see anything was off. This time it wasn’t because I’d willfully ignored dark signs, but rather because for a long time it really just seemed like a regular, run of the mill special edition of a game. The graphics were upgraded, the music was remixed, and the actors were recast. Actually, I was disappointed by that last change more than anything. Recasts are to be expected, and I had a feeling that at least some of the actors were going to be replaced or at least have any additional dialogue dubbed by someone new. But this went beyond what I was expecting- every single character had a new VA, and it was jarring just how different all of the voices were. 

I let it slide though when I realized why the recasts had happened- a LOT of the dialogue was different now. Sometimes it might have just been retranslations, you know, small fixes here and there, but sometimes it was REALLY different stuff. Anyone who’s played the game knows how the nurse Nancy is very devoted to her husband, but the new dialogue went beyond just “super loving wife.” She would get jealous if I spoke to him and would threaten to poison me if I got between them. I knew the game was being re-rated to Teen, but that was pretty surprising. And it wasn’t the only change- it seemed like every line had been re-written to be darker, more violent, and- I assumed- more “Teen rated”. 

Otherwise, the game was pretty much the same when it came to the plot. I knew most of the new stuff was post content, so I tried to rush through as best I could and over the next week and a half I did nothing but grind and fight through the first act. Besides the new polish, it was still the same game I was used to. It was when it was time to go to Leon Karnak that things started to seem... off. 

To avoid spoilers for anyone who isn’t familiar with the game, I’ll just keep this brief: At the end of the first arc, you have to go into what is essentially the underworld to fight a boss there. That sounds like it would be pretty dark, but it really isn’t. Or at least, it wasn’t. But suddenly it was like they’d decided to once again lean into that whole Teen rating all over again- but this time it felt like it went too far. 

The art as I said before had been updated even before this, but Leon Karnak was a different story altogether. It had been totally rebuilt and made to look... well, like an underworld. It was dark and only illuminated by blue lightning that rose up from the ground sporadically. The monsters were redesigned here too, all of the saturation sapped from their sprites and the black pixels which made their eyes were replaced with bright white, like looking into the opposite of a black hole. And when I made it to the first bosses, the two statues that guard the tower where you fight the sarcophagus, they were completely replaced. The new pair was still just as gargantuan, but they weren’t just statues this time. They were moving in this slow, shambling way like giant corpses- and this was some GOOD animation, like “all the budget went to this right here” type animation. The models were similar to the Anubus-esque statues that they had replaced, but the only way I can explain it was it looked like they had rotted and wilted. Their faces were sagging and their black mouths were gaping like a couple of fish. 

Now I’m sure we’ve all played a game with a one-sided boss battle, but this put those to shame. I was wailing on them for probably a full four or five minutes and it was doing nothing. I usually bring a few different weapons for enemies with different resistances, but these guys? It was like they were resistant to every single move. I kept at it because I thought that surely I was doing something wrong. It only ended when they both unleashed a heavy-duty attack at the same time, sending me from full HP down to zero. 

The screen flashed with the same blue lightning for a few seconds and then an error box came up, closing the game. I booted it back up, ready to load a save and try again, but rather than the opening title card or MV there was another black screen with flashing blue bolts of lightning, this time much more prolonged, and it crashed again. 

At this point I emailed back John Wheeler to let him know I’d encountered a bug. After all, he’d want to know about this, right? Especially one as game breaking as this one. When a week passed and he hadn’t responded I sent him another email, once again met back with nothing. 

I was at a bit of a loss of what to do. I didn’t feel right posting a review in this state, and I didn’t know how to move forward with contacting Xseed. I considered trying to contact somebody else in the company, maybe customer support, but if the head of localization himself wasn’t responding I couldn’t imagine somebody lower on ladder would be able to help me out. I decided what I had to do was just wash my hands of it completely. It felt unfair to judge the game as it was, when I hadn’t had any chance to really experience the post game content I’d set out to experience. 

I’d pretty much forgotten about it completely until I started seeing buzz for the game on Twitter last week. I had never posted any review, and I realized that a lot of people were going to be experiencing the game now that it was really coming out, and it wouldn’t be long until people got to Leon Karnak. The idea of getting to talk with people about the strange art direction the game took, the new casting, and- if it didn’t get fixed- the game-breaking bug at the end of the second arc, all of that was suddenly a pretty exciting idea. 

On the 25th, I scoured Twitter for comments about the game. I even went on the tag on Tumblr when that didn’t turn anything up. Sure, people were saying the sound quality was different, and I did see a debate about whether or not Vishnal was recast, but I was pretty confused as to it was even a question. The new voice actor was SO different that I couldn’t imagine anyone questioning if it had changed. And when that seemed to be the only topic of discussion, even as the week went on and I could imagine some people had to be getting their way through to the end of the first arc, I was getting antsy. 

I decided to watch a playthrough online- carefully picking out one with commentary so I could hear them react- and was struck by a pretty shocking revelation. I ended up going to another video too, just to make sure it wasn’t just that video. But it wasn’t. Every single playthrough I started was nothing like the game I’d played. 

The weird new voices, the violent dialogue... it was nowhere to be found. Video after video, I was hit with a normal game nothing like what I’d played. I knew it would take time for people to get there, but I was refreshing Youtube daily for a video of somebody playing to Leon Karnak, because somehow it didn’t seem real and I knew it wouldn’t until I saw the footage, even if I knew what it would be. All the way I was emailing John Wheeler asking if there had been major last-minute revisions after my copy had been sent to me. 

After so many attempts to contact him went unanswered, I called customer service for Xseed and asked- well, at this point admittedly I was so frazzled that it was less “asking” and more “demanding”- but I asked to speak to somebody about my advance copy acting so strange. She was confused and told me something that really got me freaked out- 

They hadn’t sent out any advanced copies to reviewers. 

I tried to keep myself from getting too freaked and told her that maybe it was above her, since after all this came from Mr. Wheeler himself, and she was much more understanding than she had any right to be with how I was yelling at her. She put me on hold and transferred me to a supervisor, who documented what I was saying I’d experienced, but she didn’t have much more information for me. Essentially, she gave me a glorified apology. I was on my own again. 

When playthrough footage of Leon Karnak did indeed go up and showed it was, of course, unchanged, I decided what I needed to do was start the game back up and get some screenshots of, at least, the blue lightning bug I was getting. If I could send them to the customer service rep, or put them online to see if anybody else had experienced it, I thought, maybe I could get to the bottom of what was going on. 

What happened instead was so terrifying I debated even writing this, because I knew it would instantly be written off as a joke or, worse, me being crazy. But it’s eating away at me and I have to tell somebody. Anybody. 

I booted the game back up, my left thumb hovering over the screenshot button. The blue lightning flashed and I got a shot of it, but instead of crashing there was text in the center of the screen. I stared at it, completely shocked by what I was seeing. Printed there, clear as day, was my name.

I gaped at it, and then once again I pressed the screenshot button. This time nothing happened. The text advanced. This time, that same demonic tone that had voiced the characters themselves read it to me. I’ll remember that bone-chilling voice and those shocking words for the rest of my life.

“I am awoken because of your ignorant trust. You are a fool who has no idea what you’ve unleashed.”

I was shaking, my mind going almost numb with fear. It flashed again, and then it went black. I don’t dare turn it back on.

There was a long period where I was certain that something was coming, that something I’d “unleashed,” but whatever it was talking about still hasn’t come. Maybe it never will; maybe it was just another thing in the game designed to scare me. But I have a hard time believing that. The amount of work some anonymous hacker would have to go through to code what I saw, if it was just some prank designed to fool me and me alone? I don’t buy that. No, call me crazy all you like, but I know there is something else afoot. I understand now that the person who sent me that game wasn’t the man they pretended to be. But I don’t know if I’ll ever really know who- or what- they really were.

I’m going to boot up the game one more time today. Try to get to the bottom of all of this. I just... I had to write this before I did. I don’t really have an explanation why, but I have a feeling that something bad is going to happen when I power the Switch back on. I’m afraid if I don’t say something now, what I’ve experienced is going to disappear with me.

I should leave it be, but after everything I’ve been through, I HAVE to know.

Hopefully I’m wrong. And if I am, I’ll post an addendum with my experiences. This time, I’ll even try to film it with my phone. And then I can truly know what this game is and why it was sent to me.

Wish me luck, and keep a lookout for my addendum in an hour.


End file.
